


Gladly Be a Fool

by ForASecondThereWedWon



Category: A Discovery of Witches (TV)
Genre: (sorta?), Banter, Bedroom Sex, Chemistry, Clothing Kink, Desire, Episode: s02e04, F/M, Hook-Up, Missing Scene, My First Work in This Fandom, Smut and Humour, Vaginal Fingering
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-29
Updated: 2021-01-29
Packaged: 2021-03-15 19:41:16
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,882
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29069718
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ForASecondThereWedWon/pseuds/ForASecondThereWedWon
Summary: The missing scene after Phoebe and Marcus stumble into his bedroom in episode 4.
Relationships: Phoebe Taylor/Marcus Whitmore
Comments: 4
Kudos: 41





	Gladly Be a Fool

**Author's Note:**

> Title from Bruno Major's "Old Fashioned"—Phoebe and Marcus's background music in the show.

“Is this alright?” Marcus asks, despite feeling Phoebe’s calf wind around him like the heavy scroll on an antique gilt frame—the kind of thing they surely have in the vaults at her auction house.

“Completely,” she says against his throat before leaving a lingering kiss. “Does it seem like I think this isn’t alright?”

“Just checking.” He laughs at himself, scoffs with his eyes shut. “It was only that you looked a bit disoriented when we…”

“Flung ourselves onto your bed?”

Phoebe’s bold. He suspected, even with her backtracking after kissing him by the cab, and he enjoys it immensely.

“Yes. Forgive me. Occupational hazard.”

Smiling, he bends his head to her neck. She tilts her head to make space for him. The hum of blood beneath the surface of her skin is more intoxicating than the red wine, less than the creep of her fingers unbuttoning and spreading his shirt. He wishes he were wearing something smarter; blue plaid isn’t his go-to seduction look. However, he didn’t foresee this when he darted to Phoebe’s office earlier. That just toppled into dinner, from dinner into a lovely stroll while they discussed his taste in music to the soundtrack of her laugh, from playful conversation to the kiss that left him longing on the sidewalk, to her surprising call, to, finally, the supreme pleasure of holding her body in place with his and the prospect of imminently warming his cool sheets.

“Are you saying you’re trying to assess my health? In other words, play doctor with me?”

“I don’t think it’s _playing_ doctor when I actually have the qualifications,” he argues between kisses, meandering up to her cheek, then her mouth.

“I suppose I have been acting out of character. Do you think that could be a symptom of anything?”

Phoebe pushes at his shirt and Marcus lifts one hand and then the other, slipping free of the sleeves so she can toss the garment aside. He lifts his head and cocks it.

“I’ll keep you overnight to make sure.”

He doesn’t think he’s offered her anything unusual, and yet she clasps the back of his neck and leads him through a kiss the flavour of gratitude and relief, intense desire welling just beneath. The last thing gets him harder than anything. He presses his groin to her thigh, wanting her, hating his jeans.

Reminding himself that he’s a thinking being, a centuries-old intellect, not just a creature of primal hungers like the one Domenico described, Marcus defers briefly to his brain. The verdict there is that Phoebe’s feeling reassured by his implication that he’d like her to stay the night. She’s inquisitive, attempting to decipher him since they met, holding back even more questions than she asked. Amid all her uncertainties where he’s concerned, his invitation is solid. A promise that predicts the next eight or so hours of her life. He decides he can appreciate that craving for a knowable future. By job and genetics, they’re perhaps both more comfortable with the past.

“I really can’t believe I called you,” Phoebe confesses, working on his belt. “I’m normally not—”

“Liar,” he teases. His hair’s in his eyes as he stares smugly down at her. “A woman who dresses entirely in red is _definitely_ a woman who makes the first move.”

Now to get her _out_ of all that red. Remembering his other guests, Marcus moves swiftly to his feet and closes the bedroom door. He jerks his thumb towards it and mumbles about a friend staying with him as he returns to Phoebe’s waiting arms. His heart doesn’t so much beat as somersault, watching her skate her dress up her legs—presumably, the better to wrap them around him. He feels flushed, imagining forgetting the clothes and just pounding into her.

“Technically,” she pants as his hand skims her inner thigh, fingers trailing along the lace hem of the slip beneath her dress, “the call was the second move.”

“Well, I’ve got to make _one_ of the moves.”

“You really should. Unless it takes you a while to get going. _Hamilton_ six times…”

Grinning, Marcus shakes his head at her and feels for the line of her underwear at her hip. He starts to tug, then wriggles his fingers under the band instead. As he slides his hand down to cup her, he fits his lips back over hers. Phoebe sighs shakily into his mouth as his fingertips glide through her arousal. He applies a gentle touch, tracing her with a surgeon’s finesse.

Before he can ask her which move this qualifies as, she’s opening his fly, her ring scratching against his zipper. The kiss opens up, growing harsher, teeth grabbing lips, her tongue pushing into his mouth then his into hers, until she’s gripping his cock and he’s sunk a finger inside her. He curls, she palms. Between their obscene sounds, he recalls the neat click of her typing as she brought up Lot 42 on her computer. It makes Marcus smile to himself. Then, he dives deeper into the kiss and into her, adding a finger, coaxing a broken moan from Phoebe that vibrates across his tongue.

He raises his head and her hand with it, fingers twined in his hair, because he’s honestly not sure she’s taking in enough oxygen. She might be breathing heavily, but her hand doesn’t quit, fingers encircling him as she pumps faster. Feeling his hips begin to rock as he seeks satisfaction, he realizes he’d better distract her.

“Hope my hands aren’t too cold.”

Phoebe laughs breathlessly and does stop dragging him to the edge for a moment, but then she reaches for his hips with both hands instead, pulling his jeans and underwear down.

“I think I’ve stopped noticing,” she says.

“Am I _boring_ you?”

She rolls her eyes.

“Not like that,” Phoebe tells him. Then, “ _Yes_. Yes, like that,” as he pulses his fingers shallowly and drags her clit in urgent circles beneath his thumb.

“You can have the first move,” he cedes. “I’m claiming credit for the first one of _these_.”

But he’s got to actually get her to orgasm before that claim’s really worth anything, so he continues what’s making her squirm. With his other arm, he drops from his palm to his elbow, freeing his hand to unbutton her dress from the top. Her chest is warm where he brushes his lips. He exposes more skin, then the lacy neckline of her slip. Being disappointed by too many clothes is a modern man’s insanity—what does it for Marcus are these layers, needing time to strip and reveal, this thick feeling of anticipation drawn out. He watches the dainty gold pendant bob against Phoebe’s throat as her breath hitches. Groaning, he leaves her buttons for now and grabs the hand not in his hair, interlocking their fingers and pressing the back of her hand into the mattress.

“Almost there,” he murmurs to himself, but Phoebe squeezes her eyes shut and nods rapidly in response as the nails of her other hand bite into his naked hip.

Her legs tangle around his and tense when she comes; the leverage pulls him in as her hips jerk up from the bed. He was _trying_ not to grind his erection into the satiny fabric of her skirt, but it’s too late for that now. The contact has him kissing faster over her collarbone and up her neck, sucking where her pulse throbs until Phoebe moans, clamping even tighter around his fingers. Marcus clenches his jaw hard and rests his forehead on her neck, wondering if that was just a spike at the end of her orgasm or whether he compelled her into a second.

When her hand loosens against his, he draws back to look at her in the yellow light coming through his windows from the street.

“Not too cold,” she says, smile slack and easy from the wine and the release.

“Good.”

The word is no louder than the rustle of bedding as he withdraws his hand and braces himself over her again. He stares admiringly down at her. She just makes him feel… like he’s really glad he didn’t pawn the miniatures investigation off on Miriam.

Holding his eyes, Phoebe brings her hands to her chest. Her smile turns sly as she runs her fingers along the open front of her dress until they encounter the next fastened button. She undoes it. Marcus’s gaze leaps from her hands to her face and back. He grins, hanging his head, at her ability to _do_ this to him. She knows too, because she doesn’t speed up. She takes her time all the way to the very last button. When she sits up to shrug out of her dress, he does as well, kneeling between her thighs as she does a little hop to whisk the skirt out from underneath her. She casts the dress aside.

Marcus takes a long breath through his nose, studying Phoebe in her short sheath of white silk. She’s wearing a bra under it—white, ribbed, unlined—but he can see her hardened nipples. While he stares, she unclasps her necklace and lowers it onto the closer of the two nightstands. The chain trickles through her fingers.

“Not the watch?” he asks with a grin when she’s touching him again, hands on his sides, moulded to his ribs.

Phoebe shrugs, barely glancing at her wrist.

“Didn’t think it was really in the way.”

He gives her a considering frown and kicks his legs out from under him, peeling his clothes off. She looks slightly shocked, mouth open in a scandalized smile as she does her best to keep her eyes on his face. Shame.

“Is that all?” he wonders.

“I guess I just like knowing what time it is.” She pauses. Goes on. “So much of the past is identified so indistinctly. Paintings or jewellery by year, some artifacts by decade with our appraisers’ best estimations. The possible timeframe only gets broader the farther back we go. Things travel through time… objects… but we lose details. Maybe it’s silly, but sometimes it amazes me that I can know the time down to the second. I think time is underappreciated.”

“Now _that_ ,” Marcus says, leaning in until their lips almost touch, “was a much more interesting answer.”

“Coming from you, I take that as a compliment.”

He’s not positive _that_ was a compliment, but he kisses her anyway. Though he can feel her smile like she might say something else, his hopefully-charming insistence wins her over and her mouth seals to his with more certainty. He groans into it, cupping her cheek to angle her head as he deepens the kiss. He misses her hand wrapped around his cock and yanks expressively at the blanket to either side of her hips. Phoebe shifts back against his headboard, curving her legs out of the way. The second he has the covers whipped down, he catches her behind the knees and pulls her back to him, laughing. Marcus’s smile is broad as he settles between her legs. He traces the neckline of her slip, ignoring where the hem’s scrunched up above her hips, revealing her white underwear, for the moment.

“Did you think about me when you put this on this morning?” he inquires, fingering the lace.

“I didn’t know you’d be coming in. To the office,” she clarifies when he jauntily raises an eyebrow.

“Hmm. That’s not exactly what I asked.”

Marcus kisses her shoulder, heading towards her throat. He slips his hand under her ass to keep her in place as he grinds down with his hips.

“I take care in my appearance,” is all Phoebe seems willing to concede.

“And that appearance is very lovely.” He can feel her arousal through her underwear and rubs against her more precisely, dying to bury himself in her. “So very lovely,” he pants against her skin.

“You’re being very charming for someone who’s already got me half naked.”

“Oh, I never turn it off.” He flashes an enticing grin.

He can feel, and hear, her heartbeat, then his cock twitches eagerly and they’re in another scramble—the first was to make it to his bed, this is to get her out of her underwear and him inside her. She takes care of the former as he stretches to fish a condom from the drawer of the nightstand. If she asked, he would say truthfully that he was thinking about her this morning. The way he pleased and flustered her when they met by suggesting she should be the one in charge of the auction house was in his mind when he ventured to the shop, guiding his hand as he tossed the box of condoms into his basket alongside the coffee creamer and eggs he was bringing back to Sophie and Nate for breakfast. The thrill for the rest of them might have been the discovery of Matthew and Diana’s miniatures; the thrill for Marcus was doing everything he could to provoke a smile out of Phoebe Taylor.

Pressing inside her, he inches the white slip up her stomach with every gasp. Her fingers grip the back of his neck, her eyelids lowered, her parted lips bumping his as they share air. Marcus thrusts shallowly once he’s all the way in and Phoebe shifts her hips, widens her legs; they adapt to each other.

His hands caress her skin more insatiably the more of it he bares. He can feel the goosebumps under his fingertips, unable to count them because she’s rocking her hips with his, driving him deeper. Phoebe intervenes with the slip, stripping it off over her head, then her hands slap to his back and they kiss hard as he bucks into her. Marcus absorbs her high whimpers, refusing to break the kiss. Fuck, she’s incredibly slick around him and he badly wants this to be as good for her as it is for him. He hooks his arm beneath her thigh and folds it up. The moan that leaves Phoebe is almost enough to stand even _his_ heavy, floppy hair on end.

He dips his head, tugging at her nipple through her thin bra. He can feel her wristwatch against the back of his neck as her fingers comb into his hair. Not everything’s been removed; so many pieces of her. She thinks he’s evasive and mysterious, but he’s sure he doesn’t know the half of it with her, and that excites him. Phoebe in his bed excites him. He lets her pull him back into a messy kiss and allows his eyelids to flutter open ever-so-slightly, stealing glimpses of her. This room is full of mirrors, but most are hung just a little too high on purpose because it isn’t really his reflection Marcus wants. He doesn’t need his own face looking back at him, he doesn’t need two nightstands for all his shit.

Breathing harshly through his nose, he catches the wine they drank downstairs, her gin at dinner. There’s the scent of night air and the faint hint of the perfume she must have put on this morning. He smelled it at her office earlier, but at the time it seemed a little too—as Phoebe defined their first kiss— _forward_ to ask if that was for his benefit, like the later uncovered silk slip. She’s as irresistible when experienced through this sense as any other.

“F-faster,” she directs, bowing her body against his, and he is happy to oblige. He loves her _sweat_. He’d be perspiring himself, if he weren’t what he is.

The present rides him as he moves quickly in and out of her. This is fast, him and her, for something he thinks is more than a hookup. Two days to get them from his cold hands to her heat under and around him. One dinner, one walk, one call, a multitude of kisses. He is so, so into her.

His hand finds and grasps her hip, heaving her up to stroke inside her differently while pinning her thigh to her stomach. She cries out and he knows he’s got her.

“Good god, Phoebe,” Marcus breathes into her ear.

She shudders and shakes, clenching around his cock. He switches to long strokes as she climaxes, powering through them, trying to last if only to extend the present, here to play time’s own game. All of his seconds are Phoebe sighing and catching her breath and being so vibrantly human beneath him. He finally finishes with one of her hands kneading his shoulder, the other on his cheek. The orgasm ripples through him, muscles taut as his hips snap to hers and push until he’s empty.

He almost doesn’t want to pull away, but he’s being stupid. He swaggers unhurriedly over to the bin to chuck the condom, smirking back at Phoebe, who he’s caught watching his ass, as he thought she would be. She rolls her eyes with a certain fondness while she takes the liberty of rearranging the pillows that are propping her up.

“You know what would be great right now?” Marcus asks as he rejoins her.

“What’s that?”

He waits until she’s looking at him dead on before he grins.

“A little Duran Duran.”

**Author's Note:**

> [I'm on Tumblr!](https://forasecondtherewedwon.tumblr.com/)


End file.
